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8/08/10 w&f [2s 12v] B Given the size of our "dojo", this is about as large a class as I want. Four vets are back from last week and the 2 staff are new to the program, nurses or interns I'm not sure.
As I said in the NOTE on 8/3, I tried having the vets do ikyo omote to a ground or take-down pin if they wanted. Four of them did/took the pin. The response was "Well there seemed to be a be a bit more control, but I don't see much benefit to it." and "Okay, but I don't think it teaches me anything new.". Remember, these guys tend to be extremely pragmatic. One of the things they have consistently said they like about Aikido is that it is highly functional and very efficient. Can't argue with them there! But I think I will do the take-down pins once in a while when I feel there are a few guys who will gain from it, like the chairkido.
I am feeling like I am getting too repetitious with no clear sense of what I am going to do as I come into the class each time. Sometimes I feel like I am not giving them as much as I would like, and greater variety could help. I think that the kinesthetic learning process is stronger when the learning objective, the basic principles, are learned through a wide variety of approaches. With this in mind, I think I am going to sketch out a six week curriculum that will help me teach techniques from as wide a variety of attacks as possible.